Lately I've been watching a photography site called the 50 States Project. 50 photographers - one in every state, naturally - are given an assignment (People, Habitat, Landscape) every two months, and asked to produce one photo on that topic.

I'm particularly enjoying Peter Baker of Michigan, Jeremy and Claire Weiss of California and Shawn Records of Oregon. But they're all great, and well worth a look! Because the project spans a whole year as well as a whole nation, we see these states across their seasons, with the next assignment coming up in November. There's a similar project for Sweden and one going up for the UK next year.

It's too late for the government to train me to be a weapon. For someone to approach me on the street, and to tell me I match a certain profile. I probably won't even learn another language well enough to speak it fluently. Giant crazed attack dogs won't ever suddenly act like scared puppies when they see me. I won't ever be a grandmaster of chess, either. I don't think at this stage I can even reasonably expect to make Expert. There are some things I regret as I get older, I guess. There are a ton of traditional ways to be bad-ass, and I missed the boat. But that's okay. It just means I have to be more creative. And then later that creativity will make people think I was an evil genius, instead of just so desperate for a world with monsters that I didn't mind becoming one myself. What I'm saying is - I stole an ice cream cone yesterday from the 7-11 and I have no regrets at all.